It is generally acknowledged that certain beverages, in particular certain wines, improve in flavour if exposed to air prior to drinking. This has the effect of re-oxygenating the wine. Traditionally, wine has been aerated during the decanting of the wine. This generally involves slowly transferring the contents of a wine bottle to a decanter whilst holding the neck of the bottle over a candle or other light source so as to halt the transfer of the wine when residue is seen in the neck of the bottle. More recent wine aerators have sought to automate the aerating process. For example, in FR2862241 the wine receptacle includes an agitator and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,129 two receptacles are interconnected to permit fluid to flow from one to the other and are attached to a motor driven oscillator. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,713,263 the wine receptacle is fed by means of a valve controlled funnel. This permits the receptacle to be tipped upside-down so that the wine may be agitated, but without any wine escaping from the end of the funnel. To ensure adequate aeration of the wine, the receptacle in U.S. Pat. No. 5,713,263 is intentionally larger in capacity than a conventional wine bottle so that air remains in the receptacle even when an entire bottle has been emptied into the receptacle.
All of the wine aerators available to date are designed to aerate the entire contents of a bottle of wine at one time. However, increasingly, people are choosing to have an occasional glass of wine at home and do not wish to consume the entire contents of a standard bottle (750 ml). Therefore, the present invention seeks to provide a liquid aerator that is particularly adapted to aerate liquid both in larger volumes, for example 750 ml, and in smaller volumes such as that of a conventional wine glass 125 ml or 175 ml.